SCRANTON, Pa. — A former juvenile court judge defiantly insisted he never accepted money for sending large numbers of children to detention centers even after he was convicted of racketeering for taking a $1 million kickback from the builder of the for-profit lockups.

“The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has dismissed 4,000 juvenile convictions issued by Ciavarella” and “He is likely to get a prison sentence of more than 12 years, according to prosecutors”.

That is sick, I think he needs an extreme spiritual solution. Can I recommend a stay at Gitmo being water boarded between each Step? That will definitely cause “rigorous honesty”.

I am sure that “Sandy Fonzo, whose son was jailed by Ciavarella — and committed suicide last year at age 23” would agree. “Fonzo’s son, Edward Kenzakowski, was a 17-year-old all-star wrestler with no prior record when he landed in Ciavarella’s courtroom for possession of drug paraphernalia. She said her son never recovered from the months he served at the detention centers and a wilderness camp.”

The detention centers he was sending people to, use this very rigorous schedule:

1. “Individual therapy will be formally provided for 1 hour every 7 days”
2. “Each resident will attend a minimum of 2 hours of group therapy every 7 days”
3. “Staff will facilitate educational groups/seminars at least 5 times per week”
4. “In addition, AA and NA will be provided on-site by members of AA/NA.”
5. “Substance abuse educational services will be provided in accordance with the Hazeldon Program Standards. ”
6. “Drug and alcohol treatment and education will be provided by certified addiction counselors employed by MAYS’
7. “MAYS utilizes therapeutic interventions to assist and support youths experiencing emotional and behavioral problems. Therapeutic interventions utilized within the program primarily consist of non-verbal and verbal interventions.”

This is horrible. WE have alot of work to do. Im wasting my time in AA trying to make change.
I would be better off doing the work outside the rooms. Thanks for these links!
2 more days till my film is finished. my 10 minute short!!! it will be done on Thursday and Im posting it on youtube. I will tell ftg when its done.

Maybe a group of us should open a new age type rehab. Charge just enough to pay the bills.
Keep the salaries low like a real non profit. Collect all our beliefs and poof….

a new age will be born!!!!

12 step rehab will shrivel up and die on its own. Ok I ned to make a movie, write a book , maybe write a song! LOL. I still have my humor!

AndyM

Charles Dickens would be pretty horrified I think if he came back and saw child enslavement like this going on. Maybe we could do a musical about it? Something along the lines of “Oliver ” or even “Les Miserables”? A sort of slob-opera. There would be plenty of bit parts for character actors with decent singing voices playing modern day beadles, pimps, perverts and mountebanks of every description. With a demon fiddler playing the part of Bill Wilson.

Mona Lisa

This is one of the sickest, saddest things I have ever seen, even worse than 13th stepping and people ordered off their meds. Sending vulnerable kids to 12 step boot camp in exchange for money. My God. I watched a video on CNN of that mother cursing out the judge and I cried. That poor mother. She has to live with her son’s suicide for the rest of her life….how do you ever get over something like that?

DeConstructor

With that many kids being sent through his ‘program’, he undoubtedly will be doing time with a few of them. This will be a de facto death sentence, much like Jeffrey Dahmer, and the infamous mop handle.

There are not years of appeals in prison justice. Put him in general population (or as they call it on MSNBC Lockup ‘genpop’)

I posted this story last night really quickly, without time to do any poking around (just thought I detected that familiar 12-Step Stink all over it) — so thank you JRH for posting those details. This case seems heinous enough that maybe it will get people’s attention to the Framework for Abuse that the 12 Steps provide both individuals in meetings and facilities.

Katieshrike

I remember a Law & Order episode like this

Commonsense

The judge was convicted of receiving kickbacks. He should also have been convicted for sending the kids to bogus 12-step “treatment.” An analogy would be a judge in the bankruptcy courts sentencing someone to Amway. After all, there are lots of testimonials how Amway pulled someone out of financial distress. Plus, they can “prove” that Amway “works” with large conventions (it has helped millions!!) and even offer personalized “help” through individual sponsor/uplines. Except most lose money, just like most aren’t “helped” by AA.

I hate to say it, but this may be the catalyst that starts the eventual fall and demise of AA. It bothers me that so many young lives have been subjected to the mind bending treatment of the 12 Steps. It has produced 4000 “Graduates” which have only 2 choices. Follow the program forever and be accepted, or ignore the program and forever be labeled as a failure who could not follow the program. The people who are going to be judging them are the people in the groups, uniformed friends, family and the media. Some of the people who have “Graduated” from this program will take the path of least resistance and adopt the program, others will rebel and will be watched until they make a mistake and be ridiculed. This is was not a program of attraction, it was a program of forced indoctrination.

There are 4000 people in the Pennsylvania area who have been directly affected by this who need to know the “Truth” about what they have been subjected to. If you figure that each one of these on average have 10 close friends and family associated with them this makes a total of 40,000 people affected by this. Luzerne County in Pennsylvania has a population of 312,845, which means that roughly 1 in every 8 people (312,845/40,000 = 7.821) in this county have been touched by this forced indoctrination.

I just found out something very strange about Luzerne County PA where this episode happened. I did a search in google on “Luzerne County AA intergroup” and the domain name is up for sale, all the links to it are broken, and people are asking online how to contact them on the surrounding Intergroups. A county with 312,845 people should have atleast an Intergroup?

I wonder what happened? I wonder if it is starting?

DeConstructor

Does a parents health insurance pay for part of this?

Does this go on the kids permanent medical record that he is ‘diseased’ for life? This would have lifelong ramifications because these people are exploiting the con Bill Wilson started.

Once again, inexcusable behavior that genuinely and deeply hurts people.

I think that the judge is definitely guilty, but to repair the damage done to the people harmed by this is going to take more money than the Judge has. He has sentenced 4000 children into a program that was set up for hardcore substance addiction. At least the family of one of the victims is suing the Judge for the damage done to her son.

She is not getting the media attention that she deserves. You can find very little about her in the news except where she confronted the Judge on the Court House Steps. Her son, was traumatized by being sentenced for six months for a drug paraphernalia charge. He was a 17 year old all star wrestler with his whole life ahead of him and had never been in trouble before. He came out from a changed person because of the treatment he had received and eventually committed suicide because of depression. While a drug paraphernalia charge is serious, it could have been treated differently and the young adult may have not decided to take his own life.

I believe that the Institution, Therapists and Psychiatrist assigned to his case should also be charged with malpractice. Since he had a drug paraphernalia charge he was most likely required to attend a 12 Steps Program. In this program you are required to surrender yourself to a “Higher Power” in 12 Steps, where you identify everyone you have harmed, amend your sins to everyone you have harmed and eventually take on the cause of NA and preach it to new members. You are taught these Steps by being forced to chant them at the beginning of every meeting and told that you should practice them in all of your affairs.

On the face value it sounds like a good program. But can it do any harm to the individuals feeling of self worth and cause depression? You are taught that you are, and always will be an addict and if you ever leave the program you will end up in jails, institutions or dead. If you ever try to leave you will be contacted by the members of the 12 Step program who have become your friends and they will try to bring you back. If you do not return, you will be made to feel like a failure because you could not follow a simple 12 Step program. Because of the media hype about the program, many of your family members will also believe this. You can never leave without feeling the Depression caused by the disapproval of your friends and family and the fear that you are going to end up in jail, institutions or death.

At the age of 17 you are still trying to find yourself. I think subjecting a young adult to this at this time for a misdemeanor paraphernalia charge is a bit harsh. He may have just grown out of it, but we will never know because he was not given the chance. He was sentenced to this program and he had no choice. Many of the other children who were sentenced by this judge for minor offenses are most likely feeling the same thing right now. The only way to prevent this in the future is to hold the Institution, Doctors and Therapists who looked the other way when this corrupt judge sentenced these children responsible. They have a Hippocratic oath they are supposed to be held accountable to. Take their Medical Licenses away and sue them to make a statement. If we make an example of them this may prevent this type of thing from happening again.